His
HO scale layout was set in the late 1980s-early 1990, just before CP Rail began
to sell or abandon its lines in Quebec.

The layout was
in a 17 by 21 foot room, and featured a double track mainline through great
looking scenery.

As I wrote back
then, Pierre has a knack for creating amazing and believable scenery through the creative use
of ground cover, ballast and trees, along with great buildings and various line-side
and other details.

Or, to put it
another way, Pierre was the Bob Fallowfield of scenery before Bob came along.

That great
Canadian model railroad is gone; Pierre is recreating Quebec in the 1980s-90s
with a new layout, as seen in photos on this post.

I
asked Pierre for an update on the new layout. He said the room is finished, benchwork,
track bed, landscape and backdrop are all finished, the rolling stock and
locomotives are ready to go, and there are 125+ structures are ready for
placement on the layout.

Saturday, November 25, 2017

Now
retired after owning a plumbing business for 45 years, he was on his way to
London to see his niece.

Lloyd
was sitting beside me on Train 85, VIA Rail from Toronto to London in
November. I was only going as far as Kitchener this day.

As the
train—all two cars of it—rolled through the southern Ontario countryside, he
exclaimed about the views out the window.

“You
see a city differently from a train than from the highway,” he said.

Later,
as we rolled through the countryside, we talked about the many fields and
farms you could see from the train—things you
couldn’t see from the highway.

Train 85 at Union Station.

It’s
not that Lloyd was unfamiliar with trains. He grew up in Newfoundland near the narrow
gauge tracks that carried the famous “Newfie Bullet.”

The
Bullet—it’s official name was “The Caribou”—was much-loved by Newfoundlanders.

It
got its ironic and affectionate name because of how slow it was, taking 23
hours to traverse the 900 kilometres from St. John’s to Port-aux-Basque.

Lloyd
told me a joke about the train’s slowness.

A
pregnant woman asked the conductor if the train could hurry up—she was about to
have a baby and needed to get to the hospital in St. John’s.

“Well,”
said the conductor, “if you were pregnant you should never have taken the
train.”

The
woman replied: “I wasn’t pregnant when I got on it.”

Union Station concourse.

I had boarded Train 85 at Toronto’s Union Station. Construction started in 1910.I
travel through Union station several times each year, either taking VIA or
using the Union-Pearson Express between downtown and the airport.

Whenever
I’m there, I look up at the arched concourse roof and think of my father.

During
the war years, he worked making armaments at a factory in Peterborough.

He
had tried to enlist in the army, like his friends, but poor health prevented
him from doing “his bit” in that way.

So
he made the materials that helped the troops win the war.

Being
from St. Catharines—my hometown—he made frequent trips by train between
Peterborough and that southern Ontario city.

Each
time, he would have changed trains in Toronto. And when I am at Union station,
I think of him: Did his eyes turn upwards at the same roof? Did he walk the
same platforms?

Sometimes
the walls between past and present collapse in one’s mind and I can see a young
man in his mid-20s, waiting for a train in a long coat and fedora.

My
dad.

The renovated train shed.

But
that’s not what you can see these days. The day I was there a couple of VIA
trains were on nearby tracks, and a GO Transit train entered and left the
station while I was there.

I
left Lloyd when I de-trained in Kitchener for the night. The next day I caught
the same train (85) to London, where I changed to Train 73 to Windsor.

Snow
was falling when the train arrived, and we traveled through it to London.

Train 85 arrives in the snow.

My
seatmate that time was a woman who put in her ear buds and checked messages on
her phone during the trip; no conversations with her.

But
that’s OK. I enjoyed the rocking of the rails and looking out the window as we
slipped through the snow.

Monday, November 6, 2017

On that date the Train, filled with donations of food,
clothing and other items for Europeans suffering from the after-effects of
World War II, started its journey across America.

The Train was conceived by journalist Drew Pearson as a way
to help people in France and Italy suffering from the after-effects of World
War II.

The Friendship Train began in Los Angeles and travelled to New
York. Cars filled with relief supplies were added along the way. A northern collection
of cars started in Indiana and joined the rest of the Train in New York.

The Trains was easy to spot; communities that filled the
cars put signs and banners on them indicating where the donated items had come
from.

Altogether, 270 cars of food and other items were filled and
made their way to New York. The value of the donated materials was set at $40
million.

In response, the French created the Merci (“thank-you”) Train,
which was sent to America in 1949. Some of the cars are still on display in the
U.S.

Young became a model
railroader as a way to connect with his son Ben, who has cerebral palsy.

In his book Waging Heavy Peace he wrote that “I was just getting
back into trains at the time, reintroducing myself to a pastime I enjoyed as a
child. Sharing the building of the layout together was one of our happiest
times."

Young devised a control system to allow Ben to
operate trains. "It took a lot of effort, but it was very rewarding for
him to see the cause and effect in action. Ben was empowered by this."

Later, the layout became
a refuge for him.

The layout, he said, creates “a zen
experience” that allows him to “sift through the chaos, the songs, the people,
and the feelings from my upbringing that still haunt me today . . . I need it. For me it is a road back.”

Saturday, October 28, 2017

That’s why the Manitoba & Minnesota Sub. is set in the
early to mid-1990s, when the SD40-2 was king.

It’s also why I was so excited when Bowser brought out its
great-looking and great-running CP Rail SD40-2 models—including the Red Barn.

But if time is frozen in my basement on the M & M Sub.,
it marches on in real life on both the CPR and CN.

According to the latest information I can find (on Canadian
Railway Observations), as of last year there were only 13 SD40-2s on the CP
roster, with only four of those operational (and based in St. Paul, MN). The
rest were stored.

Some SD40-2s are being upgraded into that railway’s new
SD30C-ECO program, so that’s good news. But it’s not the same.

Meantime, the famed MultiMark is also almost gone; as of
last year only two units (5911 and 5863) still sport the iconic mark (again, according to CRO).

Once they are gone, the MultiMark will cease to exist in
real life.

Meanwhile, according to a report in the September issue of Railfan & Railroad CN has only four SD40-2s in operation,
with seven stored serviceable and 142 stored unserviceable. One of them is 6017 (in the photo above).

Sunday, October 15, 2017

If there’s one thing we all probably would like, it’s
to keep politics out of model railroading. No more fighting in clubs over control systems, era, track, scenery or the type of coffee people buy, or anything else.

According to the Exchange, you can get a “heirloom-quality HO scale
electric train collection [that] salutes the 45th President of the United
States.”

That may fire up
Republicans and annoy Democrats. But before we get into a partisan, um, “conversation,”
everyone should know that the Exchange produced a President Obama train when he
was elected, too.

(Jimmy Kimmel satirizedthe Bradford Exchange Trump train on his show; depending on
your political persuasion, you will either find it amusing or offensive.)

Curious about the
intersection of politics and trains, I decided to see if there were any other
manufacturers producing presidential-themed items.

About Me

Click here for a topical index to the blog.
Click here for an index by year to the blog.
Click here for an index of Great Canadian Model Railroads.
Click here for an overview of the layout from the December, 2009 Railroad Model Craftsman.
Click here to view videos of the layout on YouTube.
Click here for a track plan.